Upcycled Teeshirt Striped Skirt

Here’s my third and final Summer Of No Pants #SONP2013 entry! An Upcycled Teeshirt Striped Skirt. I took two ten(ish) year old tees I didn’t wear anymore because the style was too short and boxy, and turned them into one skirt I can wear all summer! This was easy, although slightly tedious to make all those seams. Here’s how I did it.

Two old tee shirts, about the same width. This was really important, because I didn’t have to make one fit the other, or alter the side seams in any way. The width in the chest area should at least go around your hips without much stretching.

Step 1. Whack the top off the shirt at the armholes. Be sure the shirt layers are nice and flat, and the line you cut is parallel to the hem. I used my rotary cutter, but scissors are fine too.

Step 2. Cut one (or both) shirts into strips of various width. I picked to cut a 5″, a 4″, and a 3″. Make sure to leave the hem ON the shirt you want at the bottom.

Step 2 (a). Here’s my whacked strips and the tee I left whole. I cut the darker blue one as I went.

Step 3. Turn first strip inside out and place over top of main piece. Pin, if desired, matching side seams.

*This would be equally or even more cute with exposed seams. For that, pin wrong sides together and sew.

Step 4. Stitch around in a circle. You’re going to do this a few times. I serged mine, because I can. If you do not have a serger, use a straight stitch on a sewing machine and stretch the fabric gently as you sew.

Step 5. If you didn’t cut your second tee at the beginning, decide now where you want to make your additional cuts. Measure and mark. Yes, I used my ruler upside down. I can read backwards. It’s a talent I hope to use in other ventures.

Step 5(a). I whacked off where I wanted to place the second stripe.

Step 6. Added another light blue, as per the first step. Then took the top two stripes and attached it to the next two stripes.

Step 7. Cut the final layer. Keep that hem on!

Step 7(a). Pinning light to dark again…

Step 7(b). And last one, adding the last set of stripes to the rest that have been made so far.

Step 8. PRESS. Always important to make your project look nice. I ironed all the seams downward. You could iron all toward one color if you like.

Step 9. Elastic. I cut mine to 30″ (my waist) knowing that I want to wear it a little lower on my hips. Butt the ends together, being careful not to twist, and zig zag over the joint.

Step 10. Mark the skirt and elastic in quarters and pin to inside of skirt. I added pins in the eighths places too.

Step 11. Sew elastic to skirt along edge, stretching elastic to fit skirt. You can zigzag along the edge here, or triple zigzag. I chose to serge over. Be sure to disengage the serger knife to avoid cutting the elastic if you go this route.

Step 12. Fold over, hiding elastic within skirt fabric, and pin.

Step 12(a). Place skirt, right side out, into machine. Sew along bottom edge of elastic to enclose. I chose to use a three-step zigzag. Stretch gently as you go. The skirt fabric should not be bunchy as it goes through the machine.

TA DA! Here is your finished skirt. Beachy.

Whoa, I put big horizontal stripes right around my hips and lived to blog about it.